Madhu Gottumukkala
Posted on 12/21/2025 1:48:14 PM PST by bitt
At least six career staff were placed on leave after DHS opened an investigation into whether they misled the agency’s acting director, Madhu Gottumukkala, into taking the test.
At least six career staffers at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were suspended with pay this summer after organizing a polygraph test that the agency’s acting director, Madhu Gottumukkala, failed.
The Department of Homeland Security opened an investigation into whether the staff provided “false information” about the need for the test — which was scheduled after Gottumukkala sought access to certain highly sensitive cyber intelligence shared with the agency.
This article is based on interviews with eight current and four former U.S. cybersecurity officials, including multiple Trump administration appointees, who have either worked closely with Gottumukkala or have knowledge of the polygraph examination and the chain of events that followed. They were granted anonymity for fear of retribution.
The incident this July and the subsequent fallout — which has not been reported before — have angered career staff, alarmed fellow Trump administration appointees and raised questions about Gottumukkala’s leadership of the nearly $3 billion cyber defense agency.
“Instead of taking ownership and saying, ‘Hey, I screwed up,’ he gets other people blamed and potentially ruins their careers,” said a current official, who described Gottumukkala’s tenure at CISA so far as “a nightmare” for the agency.
In an emailed statement, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that Gottumukkala “did not fail a sanctioned polygraph test.”
“An unsanctioned polygraph test was coordinated by staff, misleading incoming CISA leadership,” McLaughlin wrote. “The employees in question were placed on administrative leave, pending conclusion of an investigation. We expect and require the highest standards of performance from our employees and hold them directly accountable to uphold all policies and procedures. Gottumukkala has
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
P
Deep state. Flush them. (after trials, of course)
“Gottumukkala, a former senior IT official in South Dakota under Kristi Noem,”
A South Dakota man?
This isn’t clicking for me.
As acting director, it seems safe to assume that he has, at least, a Top Secret clearance. And those require a polygraph. So he passed the polygraph before he failed the polygraph. And after he failed the polygraph he decided to punish people who didn’t fail the polygraph. My head is spinning.
Totally no real details in this “report”......
Came over on the Mayflower.
Madhu Gottumukkala
Many of those who spoke to POLITICO characterized the administration’s decision to go after staff who executed on Gottumukkala’s order to schedule the test as misguided at best.
“He ultimately chose to sit for this polygraph,” said the first current official. “There is only one person to blame for that.”
It’s unclear if Gottumukkala came under any scrutiny from DHS following the polygraph. One current official and one former official said that the result was worrying, given that CISA has access to reams of sensitive data that would be of interest to foreign and cybercriminal hackers.
“How is failing a polygraph not a concern,” a fifth current official asked, when he’s “supposed to be leading a national security agency?”
It’s almost as if someone is lying.
People who have no regard for truth or other people’s feelings about them can pass a polygraph test. All part of the game to them.
Called “The Beaters”.
...a lack of guilt/anxiety, manipulativeness, and reduced emotional responses, allowing them to control physiological reactions (heart rate, sweating) that the machine detects as stress, essentially “beating the test” by remaining calm or feigning distress, alongside conditions like Pathological Lying (Mythomania), where lying becomes compulsive but isn’t necessarily linked to deep-seated anxiety.”
“Polygraphs detect physiological arousal (heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, sweating), not lies themselves; some people’s arousal patterns don’t change much when lying, or they can manipulate them.
Lack of Emotional Response: Psychopaths’ blunted emotional states mean they don’t register the same level of fear or guilt as a typical person when asked a lie, making them appear truthful.”
-—Polygraphs detect physiological arousal (heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, sweating), not lies themselves; some people’s arousal patterns don’t change much when lying, or they can manipulate them.
Psychopaths’ blunted emotional states mean they don’t register the same level of fear or guilt as a typical person when asked a lie, making them appear truthful.
From Am.Psych.Assoc. and website: /liedetector.co.uk/polygraph/
FTA
At least six career staffers at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were suspended with pay this summer after organizing a polygraph test that the agency’s acting director, Madhu Gottumukkala, failed.
The Department of Homeland Security opened an investigation into whether the staff provided “false information” about the need for the test — which was scheduled after Gottumukkala sought access to certain highly sensitive cyber intelligence shared with the agency.
Madhu Gottumukkala is originally from India, where he was born and raised,
pursuing his engineering degree before moving to the U.S. in 1998 for his master’s at UT Arlington.
Polygraph testing is something of a racket. There’s a reason they’re not accepted as evidence in court cases. Only a fool would agree to getting a polygraph from someone making dubious accusations.
In this particular case it’s likely that swamp creatures were using a polygraph for just this purpose. They’re using results from a questionable polygraph as fodder against a Trump appointee who they oppose.
He failed the test and then blamed staff.
The White staff ?
So your career professional employees dupe you into taking a polygraph that was not called for, wasting your time, to embarass you.
Sounds like a Mike Flynn copy sneak.
Yes, these professionals out be investigated, fored if yrue, then prosecuted.
Maybe they could each make fake SWATT calls into his home for the holidays.
Maybe every professional underling in govt should do this to trump appointees so they could harass them. Oh, they are!
Maybe...Biden/Obama should have to take these over Ukraine.
Sounds like Deep Staters tried to get this guy fired for failing a polygraphy that was not required. They need to be terminated.
I had a NATO TS clearance when I was stationed in Germany. It never required a polygraph. Perhaps things have changed over the years.
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